Introduction

A 2015 analysis of Department of Education data by the Center showed that Virginia schools in a single year referred students to law enforcement personnel at a rate nearly three times the national rate.

Virginia’s referral rate was about 16 for every 1,000 students, compared to a national rate of six referrals for every 1,000 students. In Virginia, some of the individual schools with highest rates of referral — in one case 228 per 1,000 — were middle schools, whose students are usually from 11 to 14 years old.